Alfred and Guinevere

The plot of this short novel--if it can be said to have a plot--is exactly what the cover says: "...Alfred and Guinevere are two children who have been sent by their parents to spend the summer at their grandmother's house in the country." Simple enough--and I've wanted to read it for a long time. I don't remember what I expected; perhaps children discovering nature in the countryside and poignant relationships with the elderly. But what a horrible surprise in a wonderful way, for this novel has truly pulled me in opposing directions: frustrating and perfect at the same time. Alfred and Guinevere was published in 1958, well before the wide-spread academic interest in subtext, in the effects of consumerism, as well as deconstruction theory, and social science theories of human development. Alfred is about 10 years old (4th grade, perhaps) and Guinevere about 12; and it becomes obvious to the reader looking for subtext that both children are products of the 1950s, offspring of well-to-do Anglo-American parents. Heaven knows what the author Schuyler intended, but right up front, he has Guinevere scribbling in her diary (in 3rd person) about her hoped-for adulthood: "She is one of the leading women spenders of her day and her example has done much to further the cause of women" (4). Even at 12 or 13 (remember this is 1958), she desires lots of shopping, and the "cause of women" is appropriately vague and immaterial. An unintended topic of this novella must surely be how a certain economic class of white, sub-urban children start on their way to shaping themselves as upper middle-class consumers. For that reason--if that's what you're reading for--the novel is shocking: how little has changed in fifty years of childhood. And their dialogues--written like courtroom transcriptions--are dismaying and saddening; these comfortable white children are natural anarchists or nihilists, dominators, manipulators, deconstructionists without theory or method, button-pressing and provoking, natural lawyers or rhetoricians who can argue any point in any direction. In short, these children believe in nothing. Their lives are based on nothing, with no trajectory except satisfying the moment (well, except for future fame and profit, as G.G. plans). The timing for reading a novel can be crucial to what we bring to it. For example, I noticed that Alfred and Guinevere are uncannily like the children I encounter when a school district substitute--rich or poor kids. Alfred's need for attention is insatiable; his primary activity is to show his sister things like how he learned to "spit through my teeth" (67). Guinevere's efforts to find friends with two other children are surely some of the most painful scenes I've ever read involving children. Chapter 12 reads like a telling expose of adult domestic roles through the surface perceptions of two twelve-year-old girls, a dialogue as though transcribed right from "reality" as the girls prepare themselves for d

Schuyler is best remembered (with Kenneth Koch, John Ashberry, and Frank O'Hara) as one of the "New York" school of poets. This slim little novel, however, shows that his talents in prose have been underappreciated. ALFRED AND GUINEVERE is a hilarious little story--told entirely through dialogue, letters, and Guinevere's diary--of two very precocious children sent to live in the country with their uncle and grandmother for reasons initially unclear to them. Their attempts to piece together the larger adult world (which may comprise adultery, death, disappointment, and loneliness) are very funny and poignant, and though Alfred and Guienevere often get on each others' nerves their mutual devotion still rings quite true. This is a fast read, and its high quality may still not justify the exorbitant cover price. (NYRB has been charging too much for its editions, which are beautiful and spectacularly chosen, but often run to novella-length rather than to full novel-length). But I was glad I had bought--and read--this little-known jewel.